Recent reviews by Archangel138

I would recommend this to any one interested in sculpting and modeling but with a few big caveats.

The Good:
Sculpting is very easy and intuitive, and if you already have an understanding of anatomy, results can come rather quickly for first time users.

The Bad:
I don't know if it's instability or just poor optimization, but this program crashes...a lot. My rig has more than enough power to run it and I always keep my GPU driver up to date, yet there are times where I go to render a scene - crash. Add a rig - crash. Add a light - crash. Try to relaunch if from Steam - doesn't open.
I've had many an occasion where I have to close Steam for up to 30 minutes, reopen it, then relauch it for it to let me get back to work. The same things have also happened with the stand-alone version from the official website.
Some things within this program are needlessly tedious just to get simple results. Thankfully, there are free tutorials covering every aspect of Blender, some of which definitely shine a light on its more why the f... do you have to do that in order to do this "features."

On the surface, it's cool having a free one-stop shop type of program for 3D sculpting, modeling, animation as well as tools for 2D animation IF, and it's a big IF you have the patience to deal with a program that can seem cursed at times, and if you do get into it, make it a habit of saving your work every 2 seconds or so.

Definitely recommended, especially at its current sale price.

The Good:

- Varied missions and enemy outposts.

- I liked the story and the characters more than in any other Far Cry game to date.

- Nice soundtrack, especially the original songs.

The Bad:

- Visually, the world of Hope, Montana can get boring quickly. No awesome sunrises, sunsets, or storms. Come on, Ubisoft, Montana is called "Big Sky Country" for a reason, and they really dropped the ball here. The game looks good but could have been great.

- Some bullet sponge enemies.
Characters NOT wearing a helmet or armor shouldn't be able to take multiple shots, especially to the head and many of the V.I.P cultists fall into that category, yet can take multiple shots to the head with sniper rifles and shotguns. I don't care how tweaked out they are on Bliss, it's lame.

- Enemies with perfect aim.
If I'm concealed in a treeline and/or crouched in bushes, why am I getting pelted from 100 meters away when I've alerted no one?

- Ran into a few glitches during the campaign where NPC's wouldn't trigger their missions or would become stuck in a nearby structure forcing a checkpoint restart.

Overall, it's a fun game, my second favorite in the series behind FC3, and for the current $9 price, offers more than enough content just within the base game to keep you playing for quite a while.

I haven't played a Soul Calibur game since part 2 and I can see I haven't missed anything. Same characters fighting on boring, flat surfaces.

You'd think that since each level is confined to such a small area, that the graphic detail on each would be astounding, but it's all just stale and forgettable; even Inferno's seizure inducing trash pile of a stage.

Yes, the controls are tight, but that's to be expected when you're using the same movesets and animations from 1999 with only a couple of new additions.

Overall, it's just a weak game with subpar visuals and missed opportunities. There's no evolution here; just lazy design with tedious story modes and poorly implemented rpg elements.

If you've played Soul Calibur on the Dreamcast, there's no reason to play this one.

The ending Epilogue is better than the main game.

The Good:

- Beautiful scenery, atmospheric FX and the best God rays I've ever seen.

The Bad:

- The game is too boring to be this long. It really becomes a drag to play and the game really loses its identity once you find yourself in a tropical island environment better suited to Assassin's Creed or Tomb Raider. Again, it looks great, but feels absolutely pointless.

- A cast of characters I don't give two sh.ts about.

- Atrocious gunplay mechanics. There's nothing fluid about it or the jerky enemy AI animations be they on foot or in cover. If only Rockstar had spent the amount time on this as they did the scenery, the game would have been great from a gameplay standpoint, even with its piss-poor story. Instead it feels like they imported in a broken version of Max Payne 3's mechanics.

- Enemies taking point blank shots to the head with pistols, shotguns and rifles and they don't even flinch. Sometimes they die from shot to the foot, knee, shoulder or hand, but regularly, a chest and head shot won't do its job. Who the f..k did the QA for this game?

- Way too much "Follow me" bullsh.t. If I'm playing a game as a hard-ass outlaw, the last thing I want to do is follow other characters around for 20 f..king hours.

- Repetitive mission design. Go get this thing, stop that person, push the enemy back, blow something up...after doing each of these at least 10 times, it's no longer fun but a huge bore.

- No riding your horse into camps...f..k you. No running on foot in or through the camps...f..k you. A convoluted fast travel system...f..k you.

This game is the absolute epitome of overrated. Wait until you find it for $20 or less then snag it just to take in the sights, but a Wild West action adventure epic, this game is not.

Boring, tedious and full of missed gameplay opportunities that could have actually made it fun, this game is trash.

This game is a huge step back from Just Cause 3 and the worst in the series. Too many "escort/protect this thing" missions. Hey, devs, this sh.t isn't FUN.
The water graphics are hot garbage compared to the last, and even the explosions, a staple and selling point for this series, look flaccid and weak. Did you guys not know what people loved about the last game? The shooting while fluid is hampered by stutter even on more than capable PC's. Seems like the kill shot to an enemy cause a split second lag that gets real old, real fast.

The only cool thing is the tornado and seeing it and getting caught up in it the first time is awesome. Everything else in this game is mediocre to poor.

The Good:

-Great looking environments.

The Bad:

-Not enough gunplay
-Enemies are unbalanced when taking damage. For example, I can shoot a bare chested warrior with a shotgun and he keeps running as though nothing hit him. Unloaded 15 rounds from a machine gun into one trooper and he wasn't the bit phased. Arrows to the faces should be 1 hit kills, even on those with helmets. A direct face shot merely knocks their helmet off which is lame.
-Little to no blood/gore. Why this was all but eliminated makes no sense. If I'm driving twin axes into the top of someone's skull, I want to see the impact of that just as I do with arrow and bullet shots or Lara being impaled on steel rods or spikes. If the next game is this watered down, I'm not even bothering with it even on sale.
-Swimming controls suck unless you're swimming in a straight line.
-No mission replays. It's 2018, this should be mandatory instead of having to slog back through the game all over again to play the good parts. Really stupid move not having this feature.

I wouldn't recommend this game for more than $10 as it's the weakest of the current series by far. Cool setting, but boring gameplay and story.

No surprise, this game is trash.

- Garbage graphics
- Sluggish movement
- No physics at work
- No real time destruction
- Garbage level designs
- You can unload 10 bullets into someone's face and they still won't go down

Activision, Sledgehammer and every other developer of this franchise need to learn what year it is and release a game that fits that standard. I get that it's easy to release something retarded kids will find entertaining for a week but on a technical level and for anyone who enjoys quality, this game is an absolute joke as I knew it would be.

A modern game set during WW2 could have been amazing in the hands of an amazing developer. Instead, lazy, overpaid hacks took a swing at it and missed horribly.

I'll make this short and sweet.

The campaign has a few 'ok' missions and the same goes for multiplayer maps. 'Zombies' is cool simply for the fact of the retro games available for play in the arcade.

Overall though, the game is trash and is definitely my last purchase from Infinity Ward and the Call of Duty series altogether. They are a lazy and complacent studio that refuses to move forward within today's technologies as it applies to games on all levels. Games that came out 10 years ago had more ambition and actually pulled off things that IW either refuses to or lacks the talent to put into their games.

Good riddance to a dead franchise.

While the PC version of this outstanding game is new, it's been out long enough on consoles that I don't need to go into every single thing about the game so I'll just sum up what I personally like, (ALOT) and don't like (Not too much).

Likes:

-The Environment
An insane amount of detail has been paid to recreating parts of L.A. (L.S.) to near perfection. Having been to the actual city several times, I could easily recognize landmarks and accurate streets while in game. The Viper Roorm, Ripley's Believe It or Not museum, The Scientology Center are all here plus lots more albeit renamed but the structures remain the same.

When the sun sets and rises, all of the lighting is accurate and at times, absolutley beautiful especially when the light rays are breaking around Mt. Chiliad and when storms roll through the desert or in the cities, it's some of the best weather FX I've seen in a game because it feels real. Roads gradually get wetter the more it rains and lightning illuminates everything when it crashes.

It truly feels like a living world.

-The Satire
What I feel is one of the strongest points of the game is how it shows no mercy towards the vapid lifestyle that's so prevalent in L.A. across all social classes. The rich are just as shallow as the poor in their life goals and in a very cathartic and some would say sadistic way, it's never been more fun to mow down socialite trash in the hills or go on a rampage down in the ghetto.

The signage and radio commercials are also perfect, knocking everything from politics to the video game industry itself. This can keep a person driving around just looking at billboards and movie posters and listening to the varied radio stations.

-The Characters
There are many who dislike the characters, especially Trevor and I can see why but I liked them because of how they played off of one another. Michael, the would be retiree who's juggling family problems. Franklin, a young man growing up in the hood, doing what needs to be done but also having some kind of conscience and a want to get out of his current lifestyle. Trevor, the manic fiend throws all caution to the wind and is the vulgar but free spirit, taking pride in his insanity but also has some insightful moments along the journey.

None of the characters generate any real kind of sympathy but they're all believable and kept me wanting to play to see how things end up for each of them. The voice actors do an A+ job in bringing them and the secondary characters to life.

-The First Person Mode
Not only is this one of the best 3rd person games ever made, it's also one of the best FPS's in years. Being able to take in the entirety of the world and action through the eyes of each character really brings the world to life and the shooting is super smooth in both 3rd and 1st person modes.

-The Radio Stations
There's nothing like blasting through neighboorhoods or driving off cliffs while rocking "We Built This City" by Starship or "Heartbeat" by Don Johnson. If you like pop, rock, country, rap, trance or even talk radio, there's something here for anyone to like.

Dislikes:

-The Police
They seem overly aggresive and I don't know if that's a play on the LAPD or not but there have been time that I've simply pointed a gun at someone and got swarmed by 4 cop cars in less than 5 seconds. Also while in a car, I've been clear of their field of view with no chopper in the air and parked in the most secluded hiding spot I could find only to have them pinpoint my location and jump the walls to get me.

-The Storefronts
I just wish there were more of them that could be entered and explored but I also know how much of a challenge this would be in an already huge world. I'd be happy if they would have an arcade somewhere with a few playable classic games.

-The Sub and the Helicopter
For me, the sub missions are the biggest weakness in story mode. The model looks cool but is just dull and not much fun to drive and thankfully main missions with it are few. The helicopter, while fun, could have the controls refined a bit more to make it more fluid especially when trying to pinpoint certain targets. Thankfully Rockstar is fairly lenient when it comes to this.

-Real Time Destruction
Again, like the storefronts, I know how much it would take to have this throughout the world and we'd probably be lucky to get 10-30 frames per second with Phys-X cranked up but it would be a sight to behold bringing down one of the contruction sites or collapsing an overpass at will. Something about shooting a rocket at a building and only leaving scuff marks really removes me from the game in those moments.

-Extra Activities
Given the sun and sand vibe of L.S.(L.A.), I wish that you could surf and skateboard. Seeing a skateshop as well as a skatepark and half pipes and only being able to ride them with a bmx bike left me slightly gnashing my teeth.

That's not to say they couldn't add these things in a dlc pack, (fingers crossed) but I just find theior absence strange and overlooked.

Those nitpicks aside, this is still one of the best games I've played in a very long time and, with so much to do, I'll be playing it for the rest of the year and beyond and smiling the whole time.

Overall Score: 9 out of 10